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After they left the gardens, she led him on a crooked path into the mountains. They trekked up to the highest peak where the winds gusted off snow fields and bit cold around Fergus’s legs. From there, he beheld the sweep of landscape over which he flew the day before.

  “How far does yer territory extend?” he asked.

  “All this is mine,” she replied. “My nearest border lies beyond that range you see to the east. The others you cannot see from here.”

  He did his best to hide his surprise. “All that? And ye rule it all alone?”

  “I’m the first of my line to rule alone,” she replied. “My parents ruled together, and my ancestors all ruled in pairs. It’s a terrible burden. I carry the responsibility of all my people’s safety on my shoulders alone. I yearn to share it with another.”

  “Ye needn’t carry it alone. I’m sure there’s any number o’ lords who’d happily share it wi’ ye.”

  “I don’t want a lord,” she replied. “I want a man I can be comfortable and content with. What’s the use of sharing all this territory with someone I don’t really care for? I’m sure I could pick up a stranger off the street and marry him. I’m sure he would be glad to rule a territory this size, but that would make for a miserable life.”

  He drew near her. “If that’s what ye want, I’ll share it wi’ ye.”

  She raised her face to his. “That’s what I want. I’ve always hoped for a match like you.”

  He bent forward to kiss her, but that invisible barrier sprang up in his face. At the last second, he veered away and kissed her forehead instead. He circled her shoulders and embraced her. He kissed her hair and tucked her golden head under his chin, but he didn’t kiss her—not on the lips, anyway.

  She smiled more than ever when she stood apart. She leaned on his arm, and they began the long, casual saunter down the mountain. The closer they came to the castle, the slower they walked. They inspected every star-patterned lichen on the iron-grey rocks. They admired every cloud racing across the sky. Every detail struck Fergus as perfect beyond comprehension.

  How did he ever win the good fortune to meet Althea, to gain her favor and to join her in this magnificent castle? How did he ever get the chance to share this splendid kingdom with her?

  She must have turned away dozens of suiters in her time, all because she didn’t find one to suit her tastes. If she chose him as her consort, he would be a fool not to accept her affections.

  They stopped outside the drawbridge, and she migrated back into his arms by some unspoken agreement. She just seemed to belong there. He didn’t fight it. He welcomed her and kissed her hair one more time. He held her close and gazed out over the lake.

  The mountains formed a protective ring around the castle. His eye skipped over the jagged line of peaks. Even dragons on the wing would have trouble taking this castle by surprise. Althea must have defenses planted all over these mountains. No one could get close without her seeing them coming.

  He planned the castle’s defense in his mind. If he joined her as her consort, he would have to think that way from now on. Her people would become his responsibility, too. He would use his sight to warn them and prepare to defend them against any enemies he saw creeping in.

  He wanted to join her now. He wanted to erase any objection to their union. He would never stand in the way of anything she wanted. He would throw his all into this place and make it his own. Generations of his descendants would rule it after him the way Althea took over after her parents.

  His heart leapt at the thought. Angus’s descendants would rule Urlu. Even if something happened to Angus, Robbie would take over after him. As second youngest, Fergus never had a chance of getting anywhere near the Phoenix Throne.

  He didn’t need the Phoenix Throne. He found his own kingdom to rule with his own queen. He would build his own legacy with no help from his brothers or his family. Already he heard children laughing and their feet running ringing the courtyards and up the stairs. He heard them wrestling in the halls and sliding down the bannisters. What a joyful music he had to look forward to.

  Althea took his hand and led him inside. She stopped by the pantry and handed him a glass of claret. They wet their whistles before climbing up to his room. He closed the door behind him.

  He paced to the window and beheld the same landscape. The view would grow old and familiar in years to come. He would learn its moods and hues. He would judge the weather from this window to decide if any particular day might be good for hunting or for staying indoors instead. The seasons of his life would change from this window.

  Althea slipped into his arms again. How right and warm and comfortable she felt in his embrace. She fitted perfectly against his chest. Her curvaceous bosom tickled his skin through his shirt. He wanted to take her, to show her how happy he was to accept her affection and her offer.

  She nuzzled her nose into his neck. He ran his hands down the trim curved line of her waist. Her stiff corset stays formed a perfect hourglass down to her stately hips. The body vibrating under that dress screamed for a man.

  He spun her around and pushed her against the wall. He leaned his weight against her and pushed her arms above her head. He tried one more time to kiss her, but he dove off to the side instead. He buried his eyes and nose in her neck and inhaled a deep breath of the scent wafting off her hair.

  She sobbed and cradled her head against him. Her body rocked and swayed under him, but he pinned her down. He crushed her into the wall, but something didn’t click inside him. His blood didn’t burst into flame the way it should. His flesh didn’t harden against her. His breath didn’t catch in his throat the way it did when he…

  He pushed off the wall and made a circuit around the room. He didn’t feel that way about her. He held her like a brother. He wanted to share all this with her as her consort, but he didn’t crave her or lust after her. His body simply didn’t react in that way. He turned away to the window one more time, but it held no answers for him.

  She came up behind him and slipped her arms around his ribs. She laid her curly head against his back and mouthed his skin through his shirt. That heartfelt gesture pierced his soul. What was wrong with him? He cared for her like no other. He wanted nothing more than to give her his all, to dedicate his life to Loch Nagar.

  He hugged her arms around his stomach and leaned his head back against her. He closed his eyes at the rush of yearning crashing through him. If only he could prove himself to her, he would never question or doubt.

  Chapter 20

  Hazel’s mind screamed Fergus! but he didn’t answer. He couldn’t hear her. She was on her own against this devastating force of nature blasting her in the face.

  Another gaping hole stretched its black lips to swallow the whole world. Tentacles lashed right and left. Sinclair, Faing, and Athol fought to their utmost to stop the tentacles grabbing them and dragging them off to nowhere. The harder they fought, the more tentacles appeared until the men couldn’t keep up with them anymore.

  The hole’s power diminished against Hazel. The stronger her power got, the less the wind whipped at her hair and clothes. She stood in a mild breeze that barely ruffled her eyebrows, and the tentacles never came near her. They concentrated all their attack on the men. She would give anything to use her power against the hole, but she couldn’t.

  She stood still and waited, but still nothing happened. The tempest raged all around her. The hole called her in close the way it always did. She had to see what was down there. She took a step forward when a tentacle whipped past her head and stung Sinclair in the face. It gashed his forehead, and blood ran into his eyes.

  He bellowed out loud and tossed his blood-stained hair out of his eyes. He leapt forward and slashed the tentacle away, but another took its place. Another green arm slithered out of the hole, strapped itself around Athol’s saber arm, and yanked him toward that devouring mouth. Hazel couldn’t wait a second longer. She had to get closer. Going down that hole to the cabin would close the hole and save h
er friends. She had to do it, if for no other reason than that.

  She stepped to the lip of the hole and peered down into the seething ocean of color tumbling every direction at once. The colors swirled, congealed, and smeared aside somewhere else. She concentrated hard to make the colors form the picture she wanted. When it came, though, it didn’t form an image of the cabin she knew so well.

  She beheld a man sitting on a throne. A golden crown perched on top of his black hair, and a cape of sleek black seal skin surrounded his shoulders. It draped to the floor. Hazel gasped out loud. “Fergus!”

  He locked his eyes on her face, but he didn’t respond. He whipped his cape back so she could see the seat under his kilt. Instead of a chair, he sat on a bare grey stone supported on a wooden pedestal. Words whispered into Hazel’s ear, even though she never saw that stone before. It was the Stone of Destiny, the Crowning Stone, the Stone of Kings, and here sat Fergus on it.

  Hazel lost all awareness of the men battling all around her. She put out her hand to touch him. She would fall into the hole and end up where he was. She extended her fingers toward his beloved face.

  At that moment, the whole vision exploded in her face. She barely had time to stagger back when a hoard of Burgees thundered out of the hole. The bare horrible skeletons swung their vicious swords in her face. Their horses’ hooves struck firelight off the ground, and they slashed every which way to crush the travelers to pulp.

  More and more Burgees charged out of the hole. The hole stretched its shadowy margins to let hundreds of the demons through. Hazel didn’t stop to think twice. She had to stop them before they overran the whole world. She put out her hand and raised her thumb and index finger in front of the hole. She no longer cared about the consequences. She brought them together, and the hole closed before her eyes.

  The damage was already done. The Burgees galloped all over the scene. They surrounded Hazel’s friends by the dozens. All three men struggled with all their might just to stay alive. Sinclair roared like a lion. Blood poured into his face and into his beard to stain his teeth. He went berserk and twirled one way and then the other to drive the Burgees back.

  Faing and Athol stood back to back, both men with a sword in each hand. They clanged against any Burgee weapon that came near them, but the Burgees closed in on all sides. The horses circled ever nearer. Hundreds of Burgees hemmed them in. It was only matter of time before they broke the men down and turned them to stone.

  Hazel rocketed forward to Sinclair’s side. He almost split her head in half in his mad stampede to kill anything in sight. She got there just in time. He danced on his left foot to block a Burgee sword sweeping down on his head when another Burgee charged him from behind. The rider heaved the saber on high to stab Sinclair through the back when Hazel appeared.

  She put up her hand, and the sword slashed straight down her arm to her shoulder. She never felt a thing. She tore the sword out of its owner’s hands and turned it on him. She jabbed into his empty rib cage. The Burgee burst apart into powder, and his riderless horse cantered off somewhere.

  Another Burgee appeared before Hazel’s eyes. Alasdair’s voice changed pitch behind her. She stabbed another Burgee with her weapon, and that skeleton vaporized in front of her eyes, too.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see a Burgee sitting in his saddle. His horse reared back and pawed its hooves at Sinclair’s head. One deadly foot struck Sinclair in the forehead and smote him to the ground. Hazel launched herself at the horse and drove her sword into its guts. It froze in mid-air, solidified into stone.

  The Burgee rider fell backward to the ground, but he didn’t stay there. He bounced up and charged Hazel, his hollow eye sockets and grinning teeth a mask of death and destruction. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t keep fighting these forces. There were too many, and she couldn’t protect Faing and Athol at the same time she defended Sinclair.

  She tossed her sword on the ground, threw both hands into the air, and closed her eyes. She opened her mouth. She had no idea what spell to cast, but she learned by now to trust her power. She let out a quick barking shout, a wordless noise out of the bottom of her soul. Her power pulsed out of her, she knew not where.

  A loud concussion thumped the air. Her eyes snapped open, and a hundred horses galloped around the open glade in the forest where the hole first opened up. The horses tossed their heads and rolled their eyes in wonder at finding their saddles empty all of a sudden.

  Hazel blinked. Not one Burgee remained on the field. She turned around to face Sinclair. “Are you okay, Alasdair?”

  His wild eyes darted all over the glade. He came back to staring at her before he understood the danger had passed. His saber arm dropped to his side. “Aye, lass.”

  “You better sit down. I’ll put something on your forehead. We better get that bleeding stopped.”

  She walked over to Athol. He bent over Faing, who sat doubled over on the grass. “What’s going on? Is he injured?”

  “He got hit in the ribs by one o’ the tentacles. He cinnae breathe.”

  “Can you walk into the trees, Faing?” Hazel asked. “We’ll make camp, and I’ll do what I can to mend you.”

  Faing gasped for breath. “Aye, lass. I can walk it.”

  Hazel got under one of his arms, and Athol got under the other. They hauled Faing to his feet and helped him into the woods, where Hazel build a fire. She knelt down next to Faing and laid her hand against his chest. He flinched, and his lips trembled from the pain.

  Hazel concentrated her power on the three broken ribs under the surface. Her instincts told her where they were, and she groped her power into his flesh to heal them. She used her power enough times in the last several days. She should be able to do this, too.

  She tried her best, but it just wouldn’t work. She could summon the power to heal the fractures, but she couldn’t compel it to pulse out of her hand the way she just did to get rid of the Burgees. She opened her eyes to find Faing and Athol watching her.

  Hazel frowned. “That’s strange.”

  She got to her feet and strode down to the steam where Alasdair washed the blood off his face. He dried his whiskers on his plaid when Hazel approached. She pushed the black hair off his forehead, but when she touched the gash along his scalp line, the same thing happened. She couldn’t induce her power to knit the gash closed.

  She walked back to the fire and slumped to the ground. “I’m sorry, Faing. It just doesn’t seem to work. Maybe I can’t use my power against anything caused by the tentacles.”

  “Ne’er ye…. ne’er ye mind…lassie,” Faing panted. “I’m…. I’m awright. I’ll…I’ll be awright in the….in the morning.”

  She glanced up at him. His pale, sweat-streaked face glowed in the faint light of dusk falling over the forest. She stole a peek at Athol, and his expression told her all she needed to know. Faing wouldn’t be all right in the morning. He wouldn’t be all right at all if she didn’t do something.

  She couldn’t use her magic, though. She had to think of something. She marched out into the forest and peeled off the sweatshirt covering her t-shirt. She pulled off her t-shirt and put the sweatshirt back on. She carried the t-shirt back to the fire and squatted down next to Faing.

  Without further ado, she tore the t-shirt into strips. “Can you take your shirt off, Faing, or is it too painful?”

  “I…I cinnae…. I cinnae move,” he gasped.

  She nodded. “Stay where you are. This is gonna hurt, but I think it will help you breathe once it’s finished. Can you handle it?”

  “I can… I can…I can….”

  Hazel cut him off with a curt nod. “Never mind. Just sit quietly, and I’ll finish as fast as I can. It’s the only way. I’m just sorry I can’t use my power to help you.”

  She worked fast. She wrapped the strips of her t-shirt around his chest and cinched them tight. He tried to hold it together. He gritted his teeth and grimaced, but in the end, he cried out in pain. She did her best no
t to pay attention. She made the bandages as tight as she could and knotted them. “There. How does that feel?”

  He choked down sobs. “It’s better, lass. I can breathe.”

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “You’re going home. Your people will look after you.”

  “Going home?” Sinclair thundered. “We cinnae go home. We’ve a mission tae accomplish. I’ll no face me King empty-handed.”

  “We’re not facing him empty-handed. We set out to reclaim the Stone of Scone, and we already know where it is. It’s at Loch Nagar castle, and Fergus is there, too.”

  “Fergus!” Athol exclaimed. “How do ye ken that?”

  “I saw him there. He was sitting on the Stone. I mean, I didn’t see him at Loch Nagar, but he told me the Stone was there and I saw him sitting on it. The Burgees prove it. They wanted to stop me seeing that the witch has both of them. We can expect to fight a lot more Burgees before we get the Stone back. We’ll have to fight all the witch’s defenses, so we better go back to Faery and get the King’s Army behind us before we go anywhere near Loch Nagar.”

  Athol and Sinclair exchanged glances. Faing cocked his head at Hazel. “Are ye certain the Stone is there?”

  “Fergus said it was. He saw it there. Can you think of any other reason the Burgees would attack us? They’re trying to stop us taking it back.”

  “What would the Loch Nagar witch want wi’ the Stone o’ Scone?” Alasdair asked.

  “If the vision means anything,” Hazel replied, “she wants to crown Fergus King of something, but I don’t know what. He was like no King I’ve ever seen before, and there aren’t many things she could crown him King of. I don’t really understand it, but it seems pretty clear we have to go to Loch Nagar. We’ll find all the answers we’re looking for there.”

  The other three lapsed into silence. Hazel didn’t like that silence. It boded no good for her. She didn’t want to fight the Loch Nagar witch or break down her defenses to get the Stone back. If the witch had Fergus, though, Hazel had to get him back.